The Genesis boards bring us a thread dedicated to lawn mowing songs... can you think of any? I know at the time I was mowing the lawn for my parents ($20 a shot, which was good money back then but I have to confess I was so lazy I didn't even want the twenty if it meant I had to mow the lawn.) (I am not proud of this, but it's the truth.) I listened frequently to REM's Document, particularly the "Finest Worksong". I don't think they had teenagers mowing lawns in mind when they penned that one.

Finally, we did a LBRS (Lower Blackrock Spire) run last night with 13 guild members. It was awesome in that we crushed the place. It was less awesome in that I didn't have to lift a finger; our priest was kicking butt with heals - including heals for my group. One person died once in the entire run, and that was Jack's mage, which is no big shocker since he's made of paper. Also I clearly need a WoW icon for things like this. I got the shadowmumble belt, which actually dropped *twice* during the run. No wildheart gear though.

And to plug other people's hobbies, one of my coworkers has gone part time to run her own jewelry making business, and her stuff is quite lovely. Her site is Marigold Designs.

Tonight there's batting practice. Come to find out, the softball tourney is on my birthday. That bites, because I will likely be busy turning 30 in some extravagant fashion instead of playing tournament softball.

Druid? If the priest is all over things, I usually either go wild with Starfire (not as great as a mage, but lots of damage and mana-efficient) or drop into bear and jump into the fray (making sure the healer knows not to bother with me). But yeah, sounds a lot nicer than my recent pickup groups. You know, the kind where you know that you're going to die once you do your first big heal.....

Yup. druid. Also I'm still lvl 58 which makes me kind of second string anyways. But Jack's the highest mage we have, so he does get alot of attention even at level 58. I have been a little gun shy of getting into melee, because I go down easy still, although I've been upping the stamina on my gear lately for this purpose. But I hate to think I'd be merrily and ineffectively wailing away on some mob just when the mage needs a big heal.

I have had good luck in that our guild (Blackfathom Corsairs on Cenarion Circle) is getting to the point that we can run weekly raids and actually get up to 15 people in a raid if we want to, and everyone listens and the raid leaders are efficient and smart. I almost never need a pickup group anymore. My only problem right now is that the time commitment is losing me sleep. :(

I've been going after AC and +AGI stats. Since 1 AGI = 2 armor, in dire bear form that becomes 7.2 armor per AGI point, which ends up being pretty useful. I don't know what the HP/STA is, though.

It requires you being ready to pull back and shift out of bear (and while you're in bear not grabbing aggro off of the tank), but you're a lot more survivable in that form, especially if you can find a nice Scroll of Agility lying around somewhere..... :)

I'm eagerly awaiting the 1.7 patch since they're supposed to be reworking the Balance and Feral trees to be, y'know, USEFUL and all. If I could load points into Balance and crit Starfire with a useful damage spell at the top (not like the current joke that is Hurricane), I might consider swapping to it. Although I do like having Innervate and healing, so you never know.....

Wouldn't going Balance of Feral just annoy everyone who plays every other class though? I mean, they generally expect druids to be primarily healing, in endgame, I get the impression. Maybe I'm too cynical. :)

Depends on what they do to the trees, really. The main reason they expect Druids to be healbot/Innervate batteries is because the only talent tree we have that's actually, y'know, USEFUL is Restoration. If they sufficiently boost them, then a Balance druid who can do DPS and spam decurse (and backup heal because well we DO have the spells) or a Feral Druid who can slap on the DPS while still being able to avoid threat could be just as useful. Right now we are a victim of our talents.

You're not too cynical: all we are to a lot of raiders is healbots. But the 1.7 patch is supposed to make the other trees viable, so we'll have to see.

I forgot to complete the thought: since AC is %360 in bear whereas HP is just +1110 unless the disparity is a lot bigger than I realize, each point of AGI buys you more than each point of STA, so that's why I'm going that way.

When I get home tonight I'm going to compare my unbuffed HP to my buffed HP to see how many HP we get per Stamina so that I can make the comparison.

Basically, Strength makes the hits you do harder (more DPS if you know what that means), Agility makes you crit more and dodge more and gives you AC, Stamina gives you more HP, Intelligence makes your spells better and helps you learn skills faster, and Spirit helps you recover your Mana and Health faster. Defense decreases your chance to get hit when being attacked and of a hit critting, and AC reduces damage when you are hit.

Maybe she's making ornamental menorahs. Much love for your icon, by the way.

I've actually been wanting to do a bit of jeweling lately. I've got my eye on a typewriter on eBay that I'd like to tear apart to make things out of its hammers, but the cost of shipping it... aye davanita. At least they look to be a simpler proposition than my last disastrous outing with stainless steel forks.

( By the way, the best song about mowing the lawn is obviously "Don't Fear The Reaper", which is the most sensitive grass-centric song I've ever heard. )

Oh, I have one to type on as well. A journo friend of mine and I have matching ( different brands, but almost identical frames ) 'portable' typewriters from the 70's - hers is orange, and mine is a white Adler Tessy. As a focus object while writing, they're pretty powerful author symbols, but I don't know if I can really afford the space/weight to take it to Japan. Taking a single dead typewriter and turning it into a necklace and two bracelets get's it back into society though, possibly on three different people, while still maintaining some of that symbolic potency.

The mixcd's haven't left my house yet but I PROMISE they will soon... I sadly put that project on the back burner (why? sigh, i shouldn't have, i just need to get things in the mail) while I did things like chase Genesis tribute bands. I am bad.

When I think of songs and lawnmowing, I remember some guy's standup comedy routine from the early '90s. He is talking about Debbie Gibson, and about how proud her dad must have been. This guy puts on a heavy New York accent and pretends to be Debbie's dad, out mowing the lawn and singing his daughter's song at the same time. So, my mental image is this portly guy roving behind a lawnmower, belting out "EEElectric yout'!"